A Sense of Smell
by AHigherOctave
Summary: It wasn’t that he didn’t love cherries…he just wasn't IN love with them. WIDLAY related fic.


**AN:** I was about to go to work and I thought of this. And I just had to write it down.

Oliver Oken loved cherries. They were comforting and diverse. You could find them in a nice slice of warm cherry pie or on top of a sundae over all that hot fudge and jimmies and vanilla ice cream. And there were bright red ones, pinkish ones, practically purple ones. You could get cherries with pits…cherries without. Artificially sweetened ones, natural ones. Ones with stems you could tie to debate kissing and that were so syrupy the stems would just fall off. His favorite cherries came through Shirley Temples. Sure, they were a little bit girly and juvenile but boy did they hit the spot after a nice long surfing session with Lilly.

The thing was, there was a lot of cherries. A lot of cherries on sundaes, in drinks, in pies, on top of cakes, flavored lip glosses and shimmering body sprays. A lot of cherry candles to burn and a lot of cherry air fresheners in his bathroom.

Nancy Oken loved cherries. She made cherry pie on special occasions, and used cherry blossom scented soap from Bath and Body Works. She even had little cherry earrings that Oliver's father had gotten her.

Oliver was obsessed with Hannah Montana for a year. He went to all her concerts, even when it meant begging and pleading with Lilly and becoming her slave for her extra tickets. And then Lilly stopped being interested, so he had to bike his way up to her limo to give her flowers because he didn't have his best friend's knack for climbing into dressing rooms. He threw his daisies in before she could speed off, her favorites. And climbed his way through the sunroof to see that beautiful blond hair.

Then he found out Hannah Montana was no other then his friend Miley Stewart, brunette, gum chewing girl with Southern accent. And he'd hugged her, just to make sure his feeling were gone. And he'd gotten a huge whiff of her perfume. Cherries.

It wasn't that he didn't love cherries…it was just he loved them like he loved his mother. And he knew at that moment he and Miley Stewart would never be more than just friends, because you couldn't date someone who was reminiscent of your mother. That was just weird, it'd be like kissing your mom and flirting with your mom, let alone if you got married…so he would treat Miley like the mother-hen best friend she became to be. He could tell her secrets, she could hit him when he did something stupid and cluck about his dating life, he could love her for being his friend, but he could never fall in love with her because cherries didn't mix well with his fruit.

- - -

Sarah was a girl he went to school with. She was annoyingly smart, and politically active, and pretty in her own unique way. They argued constantly because she was brilliant and he was simple, she was under materialistic and he was over, he was immature and she wasn't. Then they got stuck together because neither Lilly or Miley had taken Home Economics the same semester as him, so no-one else picked him…or her. At first, they'd just been stuck together but then, they'd both had baby fever and through mutual love of Oliver Jr. they'd found temporary love for each other. For all of the week they'd been doing the project together. The last night, Oliver had walked Sarah and their flour child home to her eco-friendly beach house. They'd stood on her porch (made from recycled wood) and Oliver had fumbled around expectantly until she'd leaned in to kiss him. He'd enjoyed it for the first five seconds while her lips were on his. And then he smelled something, and it wasn't the ocean's low tide. It was watermelon.

Oliver hated watermelon. Once when he was six, he and Lilly had been having a completion to see who could spit the seeds the farthest. Lilly was winning, and he'd gotten mad so he made the new game to see who could shove more up their noses. Lilly hadn't even bothered, but Oliver had gotten six up there. One of them had gotten stuck, and his mother had rushed him to the emergency room, and all he could taste was the watermelon coming back up, the faint smell of the cherry air freshener on his mother's rearview mirror lingering in the air.

The next day they'd gone out after turning back in their "baby". They sat at Rico's not speaking. Oliver kept making excuses to go talk to Lilly, who was sitting at the counter munching away on French fries and talking to their stupid friend Todd. Finally his baby mama had come up to him and freed him. Except she'd done it in front of Lilly, who had bugged him about it for the next few months, not to mention told Miley. It was worth it to be free of the watermelon upchucking memories though.

- - -

Joannie and Oliver were a perfect match. Or so he thought. She was athletic and pretty and smart and it was fun to watch her make Miley mad. And she smelled of strawberries, not the chocolate covered ones, but who was Oliver to be picky? After all, it must be hard to find chocolate covered strawberry scented toiletries.

The only downside at first was the fact that Lilly'd hated her at first. That had changed within a few days though, and they'd had a great time the three of them, playing hockey, going down to Rico's and sharing nachos, congregating together at school dances when Miley was off at Hannah concerts.

After about three months together, Joannie had started complaining though. Lilly made it so the teams were uneven when they played hockey. The orders of nachos weren't big enough for three people to share but they were perfect for two, plus Lilly kept getting her meat sauce on Joannie's portion of the nachos. Didn't she know that Joannie was a strict vegetarian? Joannie felt awkward pulling Oliver away to dance and leaving Lilly all alone.

His explanation that Oliver was so bad at hockey he needed Lilly to help him at hockey didn't seem to help him. Neither did him claiming that Lilly was a strict carnivore. Or that he didn't want to leave Lilly alone or she'd get asked to dance with creeps like Nose Whistle Wally or Todd.

In between these fights, Oliver had discovered he was diabetic. And he wasn't allowed to have strawberries anymore, chocolate covered or otherwise because they were far too sugary for him. And soon, every time he smelled strawberries on her he got angry. Oh what he wouldn't give for an actual strawberry, just not his actual left foot.

So Oliver started playing hockey alone against Joannie and it got boring because he never won a single game. And they ate nachos at the beach alone together, and she started getting mad at him for getting meat sauce on her side and stealing her cheese. And after the first three dances at Homecoming their Sophomore year when Oliver had been tired and wanted to take a break, she stormed off.

So Oliver took a break from her, for good. As soon as he'd gotten away from her, he'd walked to the supermarket to get a box of strawberries. Then he'd taken them home and proceeded to shoot them one by one with his mom's police rifle. And his mother had screamed, he'd gotten strawberry guts all over her cherry blossoms and her watermelon plants. He'd had to get the hose and clean it all up and buy his mom new bullets, but it had been worth it.

- - -

The first time Lilly Truscott has laid her head on Oliver's shoulder, he'd detected a trace of something he liked but he couldn't put his finger, or his nose more aptly, on what fast enough before she took it off and told him he smelled like wet monkey. At the time he'd been mad, but he couldn't really blame her. Wet monkey definitely a smell he liked.

The second time, they'd been dressed as Mike and Lola at a candy-coated Sweet Sixteen for Hannah's annoying and squeaky friend Tracey. She and Miley had revealed they'd weaseled his way into finding out his diabetes secret, ruining Tracey's birthday party in the process. Lilly'd leaned herself against one side of him, Miley the other. And her Lola wig had been in the way of the aroma. He felt like he was being kept away from something, something good he wanted to know about. He had gotten distracted though, by Miley saying something about a tattoo shaped birthmark on his pre-k BFF's butt.

After he'd dumped Joannie, and Miley had gone off to film her movie (Indiana Joannie ironically enough), he had been left with just Lilly. The first day they'd gone surfing and the to Oliver's house for a movie night. The second, they'd helped Lilly's mother wash and vacuum her car. Actually helped was a little strong for it, more like been forced. Lilly's mom used over fragrant citrus orange soap that was supposedly organic, they'd gotten clothespins and blocked their noses.

Then the third night was Dex Logan's annual beach party. They'd gone and stood by the snack table, eating chips with salsa and cheese while everyone else bumped and grinded to some sleazy songs being played by Josh Hallman, Miley's onetime date to her own concert, who was DJing. They'd complained how he was horrible at it, and that Dex should have asked Oliver to do it. They laughed when Amber Addison cried as Matt Marshall rejected her for a slow dance. They'd briefly participated in doing the chick dance with Todd until he found a pretty girl to flap his wings around. Then Sarah had run up to Lilly looking frantic. Nose Whistle Wally was going to ask her to slow dance. Now if Sarah could tell that you would never want to dance with someone, it was bad. So it wasn't like he was going to protest when Lilly dragged him out onto the dance floor.

And when the song Yellow by Coldplay filled the air, the first decent thing Josh had played all night, it was even less likely. So he put his arms carefully on her waist, not wanting to violate her personal space limits. The music was so nice though, and she looked so pretty in her light blue cotton halter dress, he really couldn't help drawing her closer though. And she leaned her head on his shoulder, and she was so warm and soft against his neck. He breathed in deep, happily. And a beautiful smell entered his body. Apples. Why had he never considered them before? They tasted good, especially the green ones and they were so nice and shiny. Above all, they smelled amazing. The music changed, and they took a walk down the beach., stopping now and then to collect a seashell or to kiss. They couldn't agree on what to do about Miley or whether Dane Cook was funnier than Larry the Cable guy as they talked. Oliver did know one thing for sure though, he would always love apples.

**AN: **So this is my version, at least the short one. I'll have a futute fic called Feeding Time At The Zoo out in the next few day, probably not tomorrow I've got a seven-thirty to four-thirty shift, but look out for it just in case.


End file.
